Titanic Struggle Recap: It’s Tony Cingrani’s World

POSITIVES
–It’s Tony Cingrani’s world, and you should be glad he allows you to live in it. The rookie pitched six shutout innings, allowing just two hits and one walk. Cingrani also struck out eleven. Excellent work, once again, to move to 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA (after three starts).

–Oh…and did I mention that Cingrani struck out four Nationals in the fourth inning?

–Joey Votto was 2-5 with a double, a run scored, and an RBI. Zack Cozart was 2-3 with a walk, a run scored, and 2 RBI. Jay Bruce had two hits, but hit the ball hard a couple more times. Corky Miller had an infield hit!

–Aroldis Chapman is awesome when you bring him in for a save with a three-run lead, facing the 7-8-9 hitters.

NEGATIVES
–Sam LeCure had a rough outing, giving up a run on two hits and a walk in a third of an inning.

Cingrani also became the first Cincinnati rookie to strike out 10 in a game since Johnny Cueto struck out 10 San Diego Padres on July 22, 2008, and the first left-handed Cincinnati rookie to do so since since Dennys Reyes struck out 12 Pittsburgh Pirates on August 20, 1998.

–Donald Lutz tweeted (against franchise orders, evidently) that he had been called up to the big leagues. He’ll take Chris Heisey’s spot on the roster.

–Several guys on the Reds were sporting the high socks look today. That’s a trend Redleg Nation wants to encourage strongly.

–Strangely, that’s the last time the Reds will see the Nats this season. Until October, at least.

Chapman’s contribution to a four-game series against the Nationals? One inning pitched with a 3-run lead. What a waste of talent. #Reds

@Carlw2006: I believe it was a somewhat sharp chopper back to the mound. The ball deflected off Detwiler’s glove (or leg?), and settled directly between the pitcher, 1B, and 2B. Even Corky chugging along made it to the base before anybody could pick up the ball.

Now that would be a helluva rotation. Let me continue my dream. Marshall/Broxton/LeCure would handle late inning relief in pressure situations. Hoover/Simon/Andrusek in non-pressure situations. Arroyo/Leake spot start and long relief. With Cingrani and Chapman on tight pitch counts, long relief would play a more significant role. Now back to reality. Chapman got a “save” today by pitching one inning while the Reds were up 3. Whoopie! Sure got a return on our investment today!

I believe The Kid punched his ticket in the 4th inning today. Did The Kid clear the super two cutoff before his call up? If not, a few more weeks on the Louisville roster might be justified to avoid super two status. Cingrani still has work to do, but with his demonstrated effectiveness, he might as well get that work done at the major league level under Price’s tutelage as back in Louisville.

Cingrani has proven, so far, he belongs in the rotation. Can’t send him back when Cueto returns…can ya? I mean, I’d rather see Cingrani than Leake. Tough call but I love having a lefty starter throwing 96 mph. I agree with those who said Chapman is wasted in a series like we had vs. the Nats.

So.. if (he should, but it’s Dusty so I will keep saying if) Cingrani stays in the rotation when Cueto comes back, who are his current frontrunner opponents for ROY that we should keep an eye on? We all knew about Harper last year because the media made sure we had no choice but to know. Who are the big rookies this season?

The pro-Leake crowd will now say that the Nats will definitely knock Cingrani around the next time they see him.

Really, then there’s the “he threw 100 pitches in 6 innings and needs to go deeper into games”. That’s nice, he’s averaging 6 IP per start in 3 starts, and Leake is averaging 5.8. In Leake’s career, if I have the numbers right, he’s averaged 6, 6.2, 6.4, and now 5.8 innings per start. Yeah, it’d sure be a disaster if Cingrani taxes the bullpen with 3 innings per start, even though Leake’s doing the same thing right now, just with giving up runs added to the mix.

Then there’s pitches per start, I believe that in Leake’s best season, 2011, he averaged 6.2 IP per start and 97 pitches per start. Well, sure, Cingrani isn’t pitch efficient at the moment, but he does have the advantage that he gets people out, which reduced total pitches per start.

It seems to me that so far, the problem with Cingrani’s lack of ideal control of his secondary pitches is not resulting in hits or walks, but rather long at bats. He gets a guy 0-2, he isn’t always able to put him away quickly.

The idea that Cingrani will probably get sent out when Cueto comes back, and I think he probably will, would be infuriating. I can’t figure out how anyone could look at Cingrani so far and conclude that Leake should pitch ahead of him. Even as a mostly one-pitch pitcher, there’s a very good chance he’s more effective than Leake over the course of the year.

Cingrani does need to go deeper into games. It’s not a matter of comparing him to Mike Leake, it’s a matter of being an effective starter, period. You simply cannot be an effective starter while throwing 100+ pitches every time out and only making it to the 6th inning.

Many young pitchers had this problem. Johnny Cueto and Homer Bailey are 2 prime examples.

Yes, but when you have a high pitch count due to striking out an insanely high amount of batters, is that a bad thing? I mean I’ll take 6 innings, no runs, and 11Ks any day, especially against a lineup as good as the Nationals. I mean if he can give us 6-7 solid innings, I think the Reds will be alright, considering who’s at the back end of their bullpen.

@CI3J: Honestly, I just think you are off base on both comments. It IS a matter of comparing him to Mike Leake, because the brass is going to have to choose one of them. Why would I care to compare him to anything else when that’s the decision?

In terms of your other comment, you are criticizing Cingrani beacause he makes it only through the 6th inning. In their best IP/start year, how many innings per start did Cueto and Bailey have? Answer: 6.5 and 6.3, respectively.

I really feel like if Cingrani were to throw 100 pitches per outing and go exactly 6 innings, we’d throw a party. Or at least I would.

If Cingrani were to average 6 innings on the season, sure, I’d be right there dancing with you at that party.

But the thing is, he can’t AVERAGE 6 innings with the way he’s pitching now. 6 innings is his UPPER LIMIT because he can’t control his pitch counts.

What’s going to happen when he has a few bad starts? Why, his innings average is going to come plummeting down. With the way he’s pitching now, I would say, over the course of a season, he would average just below 5 innings per start, maybe 4.8 or something like that.

That’s not an effective starter. An effective starter has the potential to go 9 innings every time out. Cingrani simply doesn’t yet.

Again, I’m making all these assessments completely independent of what Mike Leake is or isn’t capable of doing. I’m simply not concerned with what happens to Mike Leake. I have high hopes for Cingrani, and hope he can truly become an effective starter.

If Cingrani were to average 6 innings on the season, sure, I’d be right there dancing with you at that party.

But the thing is, he can’t AVERAGE 6 innings with the way he’s pitching now. 6 innings is his UPPER LIMIT because he can’t control his pitch counts.

What’s going to happen when he has a few bad starts? Why, his innings average is going to come plummeting down. With the way he’s pitching now, I would say, over the course of a season, he would average just below 5 innings per start, maybe 4.8 or something like that.

That’s not an effective starter. An effective starter has the potential to go 9 innings every time out. Cingrani simply doesn’t yet.

Again, I’m making all these assessments completely independent of what Mike Leake is or isn’t capable of doing. I’m simply not concerned with what happens to Mike Leake. I have high hopes for Cingrani, and hope he can truly become an effective starter.

If Leake keeps his rotation spot over Cingrani it’ll be even worse than Todd Frazier getting booted back to the minors by Willie Harris last year. Tony deserves to stay, and Leake deserves the long man role or a short trip down I 71.

@AnnapolisHoosier: If you don’t miss bats, you better have some other skill like be an extreme sinkerballer. There are actually 18 out of 60 pitchers in the NL with a lower K rate than Leake. Including Volquez (?!?). But they include pitchers like J. Zimmerman and Westbrook.

Negative: Jay Bruce and his season. Look, I’ve defended the guy against the “he doesn’t hit with 2 outs and RISP”, which I find to be pretty silly. Also there are other dumb attacks against him. But, and I know it goes against prevailing opinion here, he’s pretty much entering his prime, and he doesn’t look any better than the last couple years, when he was an above average RF, but not a very good one. His OPS+ in 2012 ranked 24th out of 61 qualifying players in the NL, and he’s a corner OF.

This year, maybe he’s changed his approach, maybe not, but he’s really hit horribly all month. Either he is still the streaky player, and will probably end up right where he did last year, or maybe he’ll degrade.

I’m not in any way saying the Reds should do anything, because they shouldn’t. There’s nothing they can do anyways but hope he turns it around, and then takes another step or two forward. I really don’t think it’s all that likely that he exceeds his performance of the last two years. We’ll see.

Hey everybody the Reds won! Please don’t step to close to the ledge tonight. In time everything will take care of itself.

Keeping Chapmans innings low now is a positive if for some reason he needs to start. Arroyo is an innings eater and has pitched well. He’s not going in the bullpen. He’ll be traded if not needed. Don’t count on it. It’s still only April. Hitting on the road and the bullpen e.r.a. has been the issue so far. Plenty of ball left.

Oh yeah Cingrani’s pitch count is high because of the strikeouts. You throw more pitches to get those strikeouts. I’m impressed by his low walk total. I thought that would be an issue.

@CI3J: While I don’t disagree than Cingrani needs to throw fewer pitches in an AB, there is nothing wrong with getting a lot of Ks. There are a lot more things that can happen when a ball is put in play(especially at GABP on a hot day) than a strikeout.

@CI3J: We’ve had this discussion. I believe that what you are saying is categorically untrue. I will have to look for articles on the subject.

You are completely missing the point that while one needs 3 pitches for a K, batted balls sometimes become hits, which lead to more pitches needing to be thrown.

Again: I’m not saying that for a given pitcher, high K’s mean high pitch counts. I’m saying that over ALL pitchers, there’s no correlation between high K’s and high pitch counts. That’s my understanding, anyways. I will, as I said, try to dig it up.

It seems the data backs up what I’m saying as well, but not to the extent I’m making it out to be. In fact, as someone points out in the comments:

Interesting. It looks like the high K pitcher will be roughly about a half pitch/ per inning higer. Over a 200 inning season that is only 100 pitches or roughly one start.

Over a 15 year career thats only 15 extra starts or a half a season. I know this is rough math, but magnifying out these statistics that James provides really does show the fallacy in that theory.

I am left but to concur. While I do think stats can sometimes cloud realities of the game, this is not one of those situations. I was wrong, and you were right. Being a strikeout pitcher does not, in fact, lead to a significant number of extra pitches thrown.

However, getting back to Cingrani: The fact still remains that, for whatever reason, he is throwing far too many pitches. Note I am not saying he’s a bad pitcher, far from it. But, for whatever reason, he’s going too deep into counts and needs to find a way to get guys out more efficiently.

I do like to keep pointing out that Bailey and Cueto made this transition, because I remember on this very website, people used to complain about Cueto and Bailey being unable to go deep into games. It seems both have figured out how to get guys out more efficiently.

The interesting thing is there hasn’t been a real correlation between walks and efficiency, as you and I have both found. So what is it? Are Cueto and Bailey getting more strikeouts on 0-2 counts as opposed to 3-2 counts before? Are they inducing more ground/flyouts? It’s something that bears looking into, because so far I have not found the statistics that reflects the CAUSE of improved pitcher efficiency that we have seen in Cueto and Bailey. Likewise, whatever it was that they have done to become more efficient pitchers, Cingrani needs to do the same.

Will he? Volquez never figured it out. But I do have high hopes for Cingrani, and think he has a future as a middle/top of the order starter in the Cincinnati rotation.

@CI3J: I think that you are *right* when it comes to Johnny Cueto. Reason: Cueto has had a really low BABIP. For a pitcher with a consistently low BABIP, which Cueto has seemed to have been the last few years, strikeouts will increase pitch counts.

Volquez indeed never figured it out. Cingrani indeed, today, throws too many pitches per inning. I ran into another study that said that walks did indeed correlate with higher pitch counts, which makes intuitive sense anyways. I would like to see Cingrani get that slider a little closer to the plate so hitters will swing.

My only point was that pitch counts and strikeouts are complicated and nonobvious.

And, that Cingrani is a pitcher that I’m really excited about. You cannot teach some of the things that guy has.

What an incredible luxury to have! Cueto gets hurt and the sky falls, then Cingrani holds it up very well. There is more talent on the Reds than I thought earlier. Let’s hope that Dusty can use it well enough to get us to the big dance. Hellacious early schedule so let’s give it some time and see how things shake out. Road numbers will improve just by the odds of baseball. Just a thought- Leake & a minor leaguer for a stud Left fielder? Imagine if Minn is out of it and we could pry Josh Willingham away. Willingham, Choo, Bruce would be a sick outfield!

@SFredsfan: I posted when Cueto got hurt that if it’s a short term injury, that it might make the Reds a better team long term, because Cingrani might replace Leake when Cueto comes back. That actually might happen.

Cingrani does appear to have what it will take. Pitched out of some jams, held his composure. Three solid outings. Leake (and I love the kid) is just too inconsistent. Perhaps he needs a bigger park to play in. He still has value and if we aren’t going to move him to the long relief/spot start job then he needs to be traded rather than go to L’ville.

Chapman needed work and the manager chose to use him in the 9th and give him a padded stat. He goes out there regardless of who is coming up. He’s not going to the rotation and none of us has seen evidence he even can. I know I’m in the minority, but I’m in favor of leaving him where he is anyway. He didn’t come up through the farm system like David Price. He was a Cuban “star” but we all know Cuban ball isn’t what it once was.

Oh, and even Joey’s outs were smacked hard today. I’m thinking that’s a good sign. On to the Dirty Birds and taking the series in St. Louis.

The LA Angels are about to go into panic mode with another 9-15 start. They missed the playoffs last year after a similar start.
Maybe a LF Mark Trumbo for Leake or Arroyo is more of a possibility now.

The Phillies have DFAed Humberto Quintereo to make room for Carlos Ruiz who is coming off suspension. Think the Reds might make a waiver claim on Quintero?

He is 4 years younger than Corky, has been in over twice as many MLB games (400+) and recorded going on 3 times as many plate appearances (1300+).

I’d say if they do it means Hanigan is expected back later rather than sooner.

I was pretty much out of touch with the broadcast and media coverage of Sunday’s game. In regard to Miller playing Sunday, was it mentioned anywhere about the foul tip that Mesoraco took off his right wrist area on Saturday? As I recall, it happened pretty late; and, Meso stayed in but he was shaking it pretty good when he got hit.

I’m a big Mike Leake fan and I don’t see how, when Cueto returns, they could keep him in the rotation and send Cingrani back. As of now, anyway, it’s not even close.

As a Reds fan and a Mike Leake fan, I think it best he go to AAA when Cueto returns, where he would serve as the organization’s number 6 starter. There he could work on consistently getting sink on his pitches. When he has a good game, it’s always the same story – his pitches have good late sink. When he doesn’t have that, bad news.

@pinson343: Because of the fact Leake is a defacto additional bat off the bench, I think they would be more likely to hold him at the MLB level as long man.

Also nobody ever mentions that Cingrani apparently being so nearly MLB ready could have been a factor in the Chapman decision because when all is said and done, there is really no way to know how Chapman was going to perform in a rotation role.

@OhioJim: Jim, I’d be happy with Leake as the long guy, if he can do that reasonably well. But he likes regular work and may not be well suited to occasional relief work (his brief past as a reliever is horrible).

Another option would be, if for example Price doesn’t think he’d be effective right now in long relief, to send him to AAA and see if he can adapt to the role.

@OhioJim: I considered that Cingrani may have been a factor in the Chapman decision. Maybe no one has mentioned it because some of us no longer wish to comment about the Chapman decision, having already beaten it to death.

@Hank Aarons Teammate: Not to mention, he really should have been 0-3. The Nats should have a conversation with their official scorer who gave Cozart credit for hits that 1) every other second basemen in the league gets to; 2) an errant throw to first base by the third baseman.

That was a very satisfying win. I did not like the thought of the Reds getting swept in 4 by the Nats. It would have felt like the Nats had taken the place of the Phillies as the NL East team that the Reds can’t beat. In fact the Reds can beat them and I want to watch them do just that in October.

Missed the game, but from the video and pitch by pitch description it looks like Cingrani is proving an old adage corrrect: the best pitch in baseball is a well placed fastball. “Well placed” of course depends on the placement of previous pitches.

I liked it that on the 3rd time thru the order, he was effectively mixing in more off speed stuff. Love it that Harper was 0-3 striking out twice against him.

The problem is with Leake, is you never know what you will get from him….he may be on hitting his spots and lasting 6-7 innings and allowing 2-3 runs, but again he may be off, not hitting his spots and leaving the ball up high, and giving up many runs with a high pitch count, and not very many innings. In other words, very very inconsistent. Do the Reds want to stay with someone like that? So that is why when Cueto comes back, you have to have Cingrini as the 5th starter, until he proves otherwise. Then send Leake down to work on consistency and try it that way. If Leake still doesn’t work out, then you have to trade him and someone else for a bat.

Went to all four games. Sunday was awesome. Cingrani is the real deal and he’ll be the 5th guy in the rotation come September/October. Other take aways from the weekend…1)Sunday the Reds ground balls and line drives started finding gaps. All weekend we were hitting the ball hard but it seemed like every ball went directly at a Nats fielder. 2) We could have easily taken 3/4. The Friday night game was there for taking with Homer’s start and the Saturday game was an inch away from being a tie game on Cozart’s line drive (see item 1). 3)Votto is starting to hit the ball hard. He would have had 3 homers in GABP. 4)Corky Miller looks like a drunk Spanish Conquistador coming to pillage and plunder an Aztec villiage. 5)I hate bryce harper.

Upon further review, I think there’s some high sock shenanigans going on. Frazier wore them Saturday, but not yesterday. Votto wore em yesterday, but Choo didn’t. Do they have a limited number of long red socks that they have to share?

Cingrani in some ways reminds me of a (thinner) version of Sid Fernandez. Cingrani isn’t quite as deceptive, but both didn’t throw *that* hard but strike out a ton of guys.

Fernandez was at least in a couple years I looked in the top 5 in K/9, but his fastball was only around 90 MPH (according to some data I found). Cingrani did gas it up yesterday at times, but he seems to live in the low 90s. It seemed to me that the Nats had trouble picking up the ball.

I’m feeling pretty good about this upcoming series. I felt really bad about the Nats series and said I’d be happy with 1/4. So I’m happy, especially since it seems the bats are finally coming around a bit.

Today’s game will be tough though. Wainwright has a 37 K/BB ratio this year. That is not a misprint.

Cingrani was, at times, hitting 96mph, which is certainly comparable to what we’d see from Chapman as a starter. Also comparable is the one secondary pitch seldom thrown in the strike zone. Cingrani’s pitch counts may be high because mlb hitters are waiting for the fastball when he’s got 2 strikes on them; he’ll throw it eventually, though knowing that doesn’t help the hitters so far. I really hope he does stick when Cueto comes back, but I am concerned about the impact on the bullpen if he can’t get past the 6th. And, sorry, but you guys keep the Chapman-waste-of-talent stuff going, so, Chapman to the rotation is addressing a problem that the Reds don’t have. Now, if he could hit…

Who is more humorless when Chapman gets a save w/ a 3 run lead, Chapman or us fans?

I get the distinct impression that Chapman is not so infatuated with his closing role this season since he is not getting the attention and adoration he did last season. It seems the new kid has stolen some of his thunder. Perhaps a starting role on the best pitching staff wouldn’t have been such a bad option after all…

I like the Lutz call up no matter what the team’s plan may be for him. If the Reds do make a move, Lutz is prime trade candidate, so showcasing him makes sense. If they intend to keep him then getting him MLB experience is also a good idea.

If Lutz adjust to hitting consistently in majors then suddenly Hamilton ceases to be the only OF close to MLB ready (and Hamilton clearly isn’t). If Lutz becomes the new 4th OFer and heir apparent to Ludwick then perhaps the Reds think long and hard about locking up Choo for a couple more years . . .

I like the Lutz call up no matter what the team’s plan may be for him.If the Reds do make a move, Lutz is prime trade candidate, so showcasing him makes sense.If they intend to keep him then getting him MLB experience is also a good idea.

If Lutz adjust to hitting consistently in majors then suddenly Hamilton ceases to be the only OF close to MLB ready (and Hamilton clearly isn’t).If Lutz becomes the new 4th OFer and heir apparent to Ludwick then perhaps the Reds think long and hard about locking up Choo for a couple more years . . .

With the Reds weakness with position players in the upper minors, I don’t want them trading anyone that can hit.

threw 88 fastballs, 7 four-seam fastballs, 4 change-ups, and 11 curves. I read in the comments, and heard from a guy at work this morning that saw the game, that he threw some sliders. Pitch FX sometimes misstakes some pitches for others, what do you guys think? As it stands, he’s been relying on 80-85% fastballs this year so far. Effective, but at some point, one would think he’ll need to show more secondary pitches.

@RedLeg75: Cingrani’s early success is an indictment against the Reds on Chapman. A one time closer turned starter who has about 2.5 pitches but relies on his fastball far more than the combination of the others.

He can hit mid-90s but sits in the low 90’s on his heat for the most part. There are so many similarities and Cingrani is looking like a ‘can’t miss’ type of prospect. Why not Chapman?!

@rightsaidred: Don’t the Reds need a dominant bullpen? After all, the pen will probably pitch more innings than any one of the starters (correct me if I’m wrong, stat people). Cingrani’s impressive early work with a limited repertoire of pitches does not conclusively prove that either Chapman or he would have season-long success as a starter. Either might improve the effectiveness of his secondary pitches (and let’s hope that both do), but it seems likely that, absent such improvement, second or third time through the league the hitters will have gotten over the novelty. Koufax had a great fastball, but it was his curve that made him a household name.